Workflow
Testing
Time
⏲
4-11 Days
Difficulty
🕹
Moderate
Materials
📦
Recording equipment
Spreadsheet to track responses
People
🕴
1 Researcher
5+ Users
Overview
Workflow testing tries to understand if a user can accomplish a larger goal than a single UI task. It focuses on getting to a specific outcome without prescribing the steps to get there.
What
Workflow – a series of tasks designed to produce a desired business outcome.
Workflow testing – a type of usability test which checks that each software workflow accurately reflects the given business process. Addresses the question: can users proceed through their work tasks with ease or are they subjected to irritating detours and burdensome extra steps?
Why
Users can often overcome isolated usability problems, but a broken workflow is much harder for them to fix. Among the typical consequences of bad workflow design are:
- Undiscovered errors that occur when users don’t relate what happened on screen A with a (much-later) screen B;
- Abandonment, where users simply give up on something they don’t understand; and
- Frustration, which arises when an awkward process takes much more time than it should. (Individual design elements can also delay users, but a poor workflow takes considerably longer to complete.)
When
Use this methodology once you have a working prototype and are ready to test it, with plenty of time allowed for feedback and fixes.
In usability testing, the plan is to test on a minimum of 5 people in order to identify problems.
In [iterative usability testing], the plan is to have 3 rounds of interviews (3-4 participants each time), with time for team fixes in between each round.
Steps
Step 1 Make a research plan
Write a test task protocol.
The tasks in a usability test are realistic activities that the participant might perform in real life. They can be very specific or very open-ended, depending on the research questions and the type of usability testing.
Task wording is very important in usability testing. Small errors in the phrasing of a task can cause the participant to misunderstand what they’re asked to do or can influence how participants perform the task (a psychological phenomenon called priming
Step 2 Ready your participants
Recruit participants for in-person or Zoom testing.
The participant should be an actual user, or one who matches the criteria of your user persona.
The facilitator works to ensure that the test results in high-quality, valid data, without accidentally influencing the participant’s behavior.
Also ask participants to think out loud during usability testing. When they narrate their actions and thoughts as they perform tasks, it provides insight to their behaviors, goals, thoughts, and motivations.
Step 3 Log and Process
You can write a 1-page bullet-point report if you want to. But your primary deliverable is a corrected prototype.
Resources
None
Tools
None